The Spirit Blessed

I awoke under a pile of rocks shards in the center of my usually sleepy village. I could hear the muffled voices of my fellow villagers surrounding me.

“Did it work?”

“Did they fuse?”

“Mommy, is she alive?”

“By the Elements, the stones are ruined!”

I slowly picked myself up from under the rock pile, pebbles rolling off my back. I stood up and noticed a cloud of brown dust settling around me, obscuring me from the other villagers.

“I think I see her?”

“I think she’s alive!”

“Fatiha!” It was my mother. I turned toward the sound of her voice and was drawn roughly into my mother’s arms.

Walking behind her was my teacher, another person blessed by the spirits. “Fatiha, did it work?! The stones have all been destroyed! We thought you’d been rejected and killed in the explosion!”

“I…I don’t know yet,” I said

“But you’re aware,” said a matronly voice I had never heard before in my head.

“I think I heard something,” I told my teacher.

By now the dust had settled, and upon my words, the villagers around me let out a cheer.

“Thank the Elements, she’s been blessed!” my teacher said to the crowd and hugged me.

After making it back to our house, my mother and teacher began to explain what happened after I blacked out.

“You approached the holy stones as normal and asked their aid as many have done before you, but immediately after you finished the words, the stones themselves exploded into tiny pieces straight up into the air. They rained down on you, covering you from our sight. We thought you had been blown to pieces as well as we couldn’t see you, then you stood up,” my teacher explained.

“But why did they explode? Doesn’t that mean that nobody will ever be able to ask for aid again?” I asked.

My teacher looked down solemnly, “Unfortunately that seems to be the case. When I approached the pile of stones, I felt nothing remaining there. The spirits that inhabited the stones are no more.” He looked at me with conviction, “the key to why must be in the spirit that inhabited you. Have you heard any more from it?”

“I’ve heard nothing,” I said feeling ashamed. I felt as though the rocks exploding were my fault. I began to cry.

“There there,” the matronly voice in my head said. “The stones exploding weren’t your fault. I chose you, my child, and I chose to leave the stones forever. Something that’s never been done before. My presence was what held them together for so long and caused the many spirits to congregate in the first place. It is my fault, not yours.”

“Is it speaking?” my mother asked, looking concerned. I must have had a blank expression on my face.

“Yes, she says that it was her fault the stones exploded. She said that she was responsible for the spirits congregating there,” I explained.

“This is good news indeed,” said my teacher, “There is legend that the stones were inhabited by a great elemental spirit called the ‘Earth Mother’. She must have given up her residence in order to venture forth with you Fatiha.” He clasped his hands together and smiled. “You have in you a great ally. It is now time, as soon as you feel able, for you to begin your journey righting wrongs in the world.”

So it was that nearly half an hour after being buried under a sacred pile of rocks and being inhabited by an all powerful earth spirit, I embarked out into the world to do my duty. I headed Westward toward what I knew to be another village. I only had a week’s worth of provisions in my pack, but from what I was told, those blessed by the spirits can make an easy living of life on the paths. Still, I clung tightly to the meager stack of food, water, and healing implements in the pack upon my back.

I knew that I was supposed to let the spirit inside me guide me, but I had no idea how that was supposed to happen. So far, it had been as quiet as a cat, only speaking those few times back in the village. As I made my way through the forest pathways, I began to wonder if I was really inhabited at all.

“You are,” it said and then remained quiet the rest of the way to the village. I guess that settles that question.

The village to the west of ours was known mainly for its craftspeople. One could trade for almost anything there, and I planned to spend quite a time there building up a savings of provisions and tools if I could help it.

I was marveling at the three story wooden buildings, when I noticed a little girl get away from her mother and dart across the main walkway of the town. Her toe tipped a rock in the dirt and she tumbled over hard onto her right arm. The foot traffic on the path had barely noticed the girl, and I was afraid people would just walk over her. So I ran to her and held my hands out so that people would stop and make way. “Make way! I’m spirit blessed, this girl is hurt!” I shouted.

People began to stare awkwardly and a circle shortly formed around me. I could hear them murmuring about me, but hadn’t the time to pay attention. The little girl was crying and her forearm was at a queer angle. The bone must be broken.

“Oh Sam, why did you have to go and run across the walk so carelessly?” her mother asked then gasped when she saw her daughter’s arm. Without a healer, this type of injury would surely cause death. “Thank the spirits, for you!” she told me after someone repeated that I was spirit blessed.

I set the bone easily, and used some nearby wood to fashion a splint for her. This was basic healing knowledge that my teacher taught me early on. I used some salve from my pack to prevent a fever. My teacher told me that the spirits tell us of tiny, invisible creatures that will swarm on wounds if the wounds aren’t cleaned with special salves and potions.

“Lay your hands on the girl’s wounds,” said the voice in my head.

“For what purpose?,” I thought to the voice, “We’ve already done everything needed to heal the wounds. She’ll heal in time.”

“You would do well to listen to me, child,” but the voice was quiet after that.

“She’ll be fine in a few weeks,” I told the child’s mother. “She’ll need to keep the wooden splint on for a few weeks and keep the area clean, but it should heal straight.

“Thank you so much, Spirit Blessed!” the mother said and hugged me.

“You’re welcome!” I said, slightly smothered.

The crowd dispersed, and I made my way to an inn so that I could set up a base of operations in the town. Word spread that afternoon that I was there and spirit blessed, and all manners of minor ailments made their way to me. I healed them all using the skills taught me by my teacher. I began to wonder what the point of being inhabited by a spirit was. By that night I was exhausted.

About a week later, I was in the middle of brewing a chicken bone potion for someone with an illness when I heard a commotion outside. I ran through the common room of the inn and out the doorway and couldn’t help but gasp.

There was a giant grey animal with a man on top of it. The animal was stomping stalls and wares and swinging what looked to be an arm coming from its face at people in its way. The man on top seemed to be directing the animal’s movements. “Bandits!” someone screamed. The scene was chaotic, everyone was running to avoid the man and the animal, and another group of men were slashing at the people running away with long, hooked, iron swords.

I am ashamed to say that I ran. I followed the crowd into the center of the town where there was another offshoot of bandits grabbing passersby and pushing them into the large guildhall, the largest building in the village. I was hiding in a doorway when I was suddenly grabbed from behind by one of the men. He leaped back and yowled, looking at his now smoldering hands.

“I won’t let them touch you,” the voice said quietly in my head, “you have to trust me and work with me at a propitious moment.”

The voice went quiet as another bandit behind his burned fellow raised a sword at me and pointed toward the guild hall. I ran as quickly as I could into the building, barely dodging a sword swung at my head by one of the bandits standing outside the hall.

Inside, people were huddling together at the back of the building. Mothers clutching their children and fathers clutching their families. A few moments later, one of the bandits slammed the doors of the guild hall shut. “What’s happening?” people asked. The smell of smoke came as the answer. “They’ve set the hall on fire!” someone screamed as the hall quickly began to light and fill with choking smoke.

I started coughing as my lungs filled with smoke, and I could no longer breathe. “Now would be the time, my darling Fatiha,” the voice said in my head.

“What do I do?” I asked it.

“You relax your control and let me do what I do best!” the voice shouted at me.

I realized then that, until that point, I’d been fighting an exhausting war with myself. I needed control because I needed to do everything myself. I trusted myself to do what was needed, to rely on my training, to heal people of my own accord. However, that’s not what being spirit blessed is. As I felt my eyesight growing dim from lack of air, I finally said “go, do what you will, Spirit,” and I handed control of myself to the spirits.

Immediately, I felt the smoke swirl in my lungs and exit with a single whooshing vomit of air. The air surrounding the villagers and myself, which was already sweltering, began to tingle with energy as though it was alive. My body stood up, straight-backed with the confidence of a god. My arms extended outward, and I felt my spirit connect with the air in the hall. I was the hall. Small pinpricks of white light began to pop in and out of existence all around the villagers, and any flame licked wounds were suddenly turned to bright pink new skin. The flames still danced in the hall, but instead of harming the villagers, they seemed to play with them.

There was a rush of air, and the barricaded main doors of the hall exploded outward, crushing one of the bandits. The dancing flames formed figures and rushed outward, following the blast of air, some flew, some ran, some danced. I felt myself floating toward the doorway as well as though I was buoyed on water.

Upon exiting, I tried to close my eyes, but they wouldn’t cooperate being under the control of the great spirit. The scene that greeted me was horrifying. The flame figures flew through the streets and fell upon the bandits in droves. They burned them alive, every last one. Finally, the giant grey animal was engulfed by flame figures, and, after a moment of its screams, its belly exploded outward in a flood of gore.

With the last of the bandits dead, I lost consciousness, but not before I heard these words. “You’ll learn to rely on me, little one. Together we shall heal the world of its blights. One way or another.”

I awoke at night in a room at the inn. There was a grizzled old man by my side.

“Welcome back to the world, spirit blessed. You’ve been out for two days,” the man said.

I could still smell the burning flesh from the bandits, and I put my face in my hands to cry.

“You saved them all, Greatness. They were all too cowardly to sit by your side though. I’d seen battle before, so I was the least cowed of them all. I saw your great acts and told them I’d take care of you until you revived,” he said.

“The spirit, it burned them all,” I said, horrified.

“Greatness, those men were already burned out in spirit. They were already waiting for death. Believe me, I know their type. They had nothing to live for but pain and spite. You did them a favor, the two of you,” he said.

“But I killed them? I’m supposed to be a healer!” I shouted.

“It was them or us, Greatness. They had even you cornered in the guild hall, ready to burn us all to cinders. If it weren’t for you, they would have burned the whole village,” he said calmly.

“Thank you, kind man…for taking care of me,” I said finally.

“My pleasure to serve, Greatness,” he said with a tiny bow.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” I asked.

“I’ve seen spirit blessed during war. Your feats put them all to shame. Pardon my saying so, Greatness, but if you learn to work with your spirit hand in hand, you will, no doubt, be the greatest spirit blessed that the world has ever seen,” he said, his eyes wide with awe.

“He’s right, you know. I am the mother of spirits. I love all beings, and chose you for my vessel. In time we will learn each other’s methods. Perhaps we could have saved the bandits, perhaps not, but you and I will sculpt a great destiny together, Fatiha,” the voice said to me.

I sighed. In any case, I was stuck with the spirit for now. At least it was allowing me control of my body. I still had that. “What shall I call you?” I said aloud accidentally.

“Call me Lilith,” the voice lilted.

“Call me Tir,” the grizzled man growled.

And thus it was that I began my journey as spirit blessed.